Christmas Tradition: Does it still exist in 2025?

Does Christmas tradition continue to manifest itself in British households?

Transcript

00:00Does Christmas tradition continue to exist? In 2024, it was estimated by Visit Britain that

00:06approximately 5 million, 6 million Britons plan to go on holiday abroad over Christmas.

00:12Furthermore, the nature of creating a so-called neutral-looking Christmas in the home of beige

00:18and white Christmas decorations for the sake of social media content seems to be growing ever

00:24more popular. I asked Liz Settle, MD at Good Housekeeping UK to find out whether Christmas

00:31tradition as we know it continues to change. And in our research this year, we do it every year at

00:37Good Housekeeping, we did find a little bit of a shift in that the generation of women, and it does

00:43tend to be the women who kind of run Christmas in their houses, that are in charge of the planning

00:49for the big festivities. They absolutely love Christmas. Christmas is every bit as important

00:54as it ever was, but there is a much greater acceptance that there is no such thing as the

01:00perfect Christmas. So that idea of the Instagram perfect, beautifully curated, colour-coordinated

01:06tree where everyone's smiling and happy, I think we're old enough and wise enough now to know that

01:10that's not really the reality. And I think that's really freeing for everybody because your tree

01:15doesn't match, it's chaos, there's weird old baubles that the kid made when they were four that have all

01:20fallen to pieces, but they're emotionally important to you. And the idea that Christmas can sometimes

01:25be a little bit of a sad time, it's bittersweet, it's a time when you miss people that aren't around

01:29anymore, it can be difficult for families, you know, broken families and mixed and blended families.

01:35I think there's a much greater willingness to accept that Christmas can be magical and wonderful,

01:40as well as being quite difficult and quite challenging. And I do think that sense that a secular

01:46Christmas, because church isn't part of a lot of people's Christmases anymore, going to church in

01:51the way that it once was, but a secular Christmas can still be one that is full of meaning and great

01:58emotions and a reflective time too. It's not really all about razzle-dazzle, big presents so much.

02:04There are still people that will have those beautiful houses and we'll all look enviously at them,

02:09Scandi chic and that whole thing, but there's definitely a willingness to embrace that bright and joyful

02:15and colourful thing. And I wonder, I don't know this, but I wonder if the COVID Christmases

02:19perhaps brought out the silliness in us all again to really lean into that, what we remember as kids,

02:26making us feel safe and special and joyful at Christmas time.